Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Casts Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze

Star Wars: The Mandalorian season 2 has cast Katee Sackhoff as Mandalorian leader Bo-Katan Kryze, /Film reports. Sackhoff is no stranger to Star Wars, as she currently provides the voice for the animated version of Bo-Katan in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels. According to /Film, Sackhoff and Lucasfilm are keeping quiet on the matter, but the outlet has confirmed with multiple sources that the actress filmed her role as Bo-Katan back in February, before production shutdowns from the coronavirus pandemic. So far, there's no details about how Bo-Katan fits into The Mandalorian's continuing story, but her presence is a sign of a crucial storyline to come!

This casting is a major deal for the Star Wars fandom - for a variety of reasons. First, Sackhoff is one of the only voice actors from the franchise to get the chance to play her character from the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series in live-action. That is going to be controversial for fans of actors like Ashley Eckstein and Sam Witwer, who have brought fan-favorite animated characters like Ahsoka Tano and Darth Maul (respectively) to life for years, waiting for this kind of opportunity.

Secondly, the inclusion of Bo-Katan is an especially important sign of what kind of story The Mandalorian season 2 could be venturing into. Within the current Star Wars Skywalker Saga, There is one major gap in the history of Mandalore, which is the Great Purge. We know from all the films and animated series that during the era of the Galactic Empire, Mandalore was purged of its native warrior peoples so that the Empire could establish a base and training center in the Outer Rim territory. How, exactly, that bloody event happened, we still don't know. The Mandalorian season 2 could be where we finally find out.

Star Wars Rebels ended with Mandalorian rebel Sabine Wren giving the iconic Darksaber to Bo-Katan Kryze, solidifying Katan's leadership of Mandalore. The Mandalorian season 1 subsequently ended with the reveal that Moff Giedon (Giancarlo Esposito) ends up with the Darksaber in the early era of the Sequel Trilogy, which could spell an ominous fate for Bo-Katan. The casting of Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian season 2 further hints that these threads left over from The Clone Wars and Rebels are indeed being revisited in live-action through The Mandalorian. If that wasn't enough, Boba Fett will be back in the mix, with rumor that more Star Wars Rebels characters are getting live-action adaptation!

Right now, The Mandalorian season 2 is still on track for its fall release date on Disney+.